Sallie Bingham

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You are here: Home / New Mexico / What a Summer…

What a Summer…

September 5th, 2017 by Sallie Bingham in New Mexico 2 Comments

What A Summer“After many a summer dies the swan…”

This quote, from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, Tithonus—the next line is, “Me only cruel immortality pursues”—was used by Aldous Huxley to name a novel and also referred to by Evelyn Waugh, reminding me once again of the usefulness, for writers, of drinking from the same spring—even if the spring is tainted.

And this summer rapidly passing away has provided me with a good many sips if not whole swallows of tainted water, most recently in the form of the Texas flood. A comparison to the disaster wrought by Katrina reminded me of a study done by scientists ten months before that flood which warned that dikes and levies would fail—not could fail, but would fail—but since New Orleans lacked the funds to repair them, and the Federal Government only allots its dike-repair money in cases where the neighborhood to be protected is appraised at a higher value than the dikes—nothing happened.

In the case of all natural (so-called) disasters, poor neighborhoods are hardest hit—often they are located in cheaper low-lying areas—and take longer to recover. We will be hearing the same story in Harvey’s aftermath and again when the next hurricane strikes the southeast.

May we all sail into the fall, feathers ruffled, but still gliding ahead.

We can’t escape, as a nation, our ingrained habit of injustice.

My eldest grand-daughter, the apple of my eye, is just completing the first months of her first post-graduate job working for a Harlem not-for-profit that offers aid and advice to its neighbors picked up on all kinds of charges by the police.

This young woman is already well-acquainted with the ingrained injustices of our criminal law and the horror of our for-profit jails. She keeps her composure by using her tact, empathy and excellent Spanish to help when she can.

Meanwhile my swan, Doris Duke, her feathers ruffled by 27 months of editing, is sailing toward port at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and publication next spring or summer. It has been a tough voyage.

Meanwhile I comfort myself in the midst of political turmoil we know with images of this passing summer and the one before: the pirate ship docked in the harbor at Martha’s Vineyard, the deer eating seed under my bird feeder, the ghostly silhouette of Ship Rock on my last camping trip.

May we all sail into the fall, feathers ruffled, but still gliding ahead.

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In New Mexico

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Donna D. Vitucci on Facebook says

    September 5th, 2017 at 6:11 pm

    the fall, love falling into it.

    Reply
  2. Donna D. Vitucci on Facebook says

    September 5th, 2017 at 6:11 pm

    every time

    Reply

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Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

Listen To Sallie

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

November 8th, 2024
This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

September 1st, 2024
This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Sep 23
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How Daddy Lost His Ear – Garcia Street Books

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Sep 30
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How Daddy Lost His Ear – The Church of the Holy Faith

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salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
10 Jul 1943388047287963824

Recently, I was reflecting with my good friend John on the fruits of the past five years. I’m so very grateful for all my readers who keep me and my books alive! https://buff.ly/NgnRjO3 #DorisDuke #TheSilverSwan #Treason #LittleBrother #TakenByTheShawnee #HowDaddyLostHisEar

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salliebingham avatar Sallie Bingham @salliebingham ·
9 Jul 1942957873966792785

It's important not to be ploughed under by the chaos and intemperance in #WashingtonDC. We don't live in that swamp, and we don't need to allow our hopes and dreams to be drowned out by the noise. "Reasons to Hope": https://buff.ly/Z8lH33D

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Recent Press

Sallie Bingham's latest is a captivating account of ancestor's ordeal
Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

“I felt she was with me” during the process of writing the book, Bingham says. “I felt I wasn’t writing anything that would have seemed to her false or unreal.”

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